In possible sign of frustration with Israel's demands in negotiations for the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, Hamas has threatened to kidnap another Israeli.

The warning came in an interview given by senior Hamas official in Lebanon Osama Hamdan to Hizbullah's Al-Manar television network.

Hamdan also said that the terror group was currently discussing Israel's counter offer and that its response would be given at the conclusion of the talks. He said Israel had several reservations concerning the prisoners on the list and the criteria for their release.

Despite his threat, Hamdan emphasized that even if Israel does not respond affirmatively to Hamas's decision, negotiations would continue. He went on to confirm that Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti and PFLP chief Ahmed Sa'adat were on the Hamas list.

Responding to question of whether Hamas had rockets that could reach Tel Aviv, Hamdan said the group had "surprises" store, with "an even greater range" than that.

Earlier Tuesday, the Al-Arabiya television network quoted Hamas sources as saying that Israel's refusal to free 50 Hamas prisoners was holding up a prisoner exchange deal.

On Monday, a Hamas delegation headed by Mahmoud Zahar, the movement's prominent leader in the Gaza Strip, headed for Syria for talks on the Israeli proposal for a prisoner exchange agreement. The proposal was relayed to Hamas last week by a German negotiator.

Zahar and his colleagues plan to hold consultations with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Syria before announcing the movement's final response to the Israeli proposal. The deliberations in Damascus are expected to last for at least three days.

However, he said that Hamas had no plans to abandon the negotiations and would continue to seek the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in return for Schalit.

He added that divisions among Israeli government officials were the main reason behind the delay in signing a prisoner swap accord. Hamas, he said, was now studying the response delivered by the German mediator and would announce its final position before the end of the week.

A year since the IDF operation against Hamas terror in Gaza

23 Dec 2009

The main goal of the operation was achieved: restoring security and a normal fabric of life to southern Israel.

In 2008, 1750 rockets and 1528 mortar bombs were fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip against communities in southern Israel. In addition, during the three weeks of the operation, Hamas launched another 571 rockets and 205 mortar bombs at Israel. Yet, in the year since the operation, only 125 rockets and 70 mortar shells have been fired into Israel. This dramatic decrease in the number of missiles hitting the south is positive proof of the operation's success.

Background: In November and December of 2008, the calm agreement that had been in effect since June 2008 began to deteriorate. By December 26, the number of rocket and mortar bomb attacks against communities in southern Israel had reached almost 3000. As then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a statement to the press, life in the south had become unbearable.

In his statement, PM Olmert clarified the operation's goals : "The operation in the Gaza Strip is designed, first and foremost, to bring about an improvement in the security reality for the residents of the south of the country. …I made it clear to the residents of Gaza that we are not acting against them and that we have no intention of punishing them for the actions of Hamas. We will see to the needs of the population in Gaza and will do our utmost to prevent a humanitarian crisis that will impinge upon residents' lives" (PM Olmert 27 Dec. 2008).

Since the end of the IDF operation in Gaza (18 Jan 2009), 668,393 tons of aid and 100,645,680 liters of fuel have been delivered to the Gaza Strip.

Some 2009 statistics: Humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip has increased by close to 900 percent in 2009 compared to the previous year (Col. Moshe Levi, head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration, Nov. 16, 2009).

Since the beginning of 2009, the IDF has allowed over 4,000 Palestinians from Gaza, together with 3,600 escorts, to enter Israel (or via Israel to the West Bank) for medical treatment.The IDF has also issued over 18,500 permits for Palestinians to leave Gaza and enter Israel or travel overseas (statistics as of November 16, 2009).

WASHINGTON – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday said he was deeply concerned that a year after the outbreak of Operation Cast Lead "neither the issues that led to this conflict nor its worrying aftermath are being addressed."

"Very few of the key elements for stability, as identified in Security Council resolution 1860, have been implemented. While violence has been at lower levels this year, incidents continue and there is no durable ceasefire in place," Ban said in an official statement released on the one year anniversary of Israel's war with Hamas.

The quality and quantity of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza is insufficient, broader economic and reconstruction activity is paralyzed, and the people of Gaza are denied basic human rights. Efforts are being made to combat illicit trafficking of weapons, but smuggling continues. Egypt has tirelessly worked for Palestinian unity, but without a breakthrough so far," the statement read.

According to the secretary-general, there is a "sense of hopelessness in Gaza today for 1.5 million Palestinians, half of whom are under eighteen. Their fate and the well-being of Israelis are intimately connected. "

Ban continued to say that a "fundamentally different" approach to Gaza is urgently required, and called on Israel to "end the unacceptable and counterproductive blockade of Gaza, facilitate economic activity and civilian reconstruction, and fully respect and uphold international law."

Addressing Hamas, the UN chief urged the Islamist group to "bring an end to violence and fully respect and uphold international law," and called on all Palestinians to "work for unity and elections within the framework of the legitimate Palestinian Authority."

In conclusion, Ban said, "Today’s anniversary is a reminder of the bitter consequences of the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to which there is and can be no military solution.

The urgent priority of all Israeli and Palestinian leaders, the region, and the international community as a whole must be the achievement of a two State solution," he said."

Peace activiststo march to Gaza through Egypt

International activists plan to enter blockaded Gaza Strip through Rafah crossing next week. Egypt refuses, says will prevent passage due to 'sensitive situation'

Pair Iran's nuclear program, an existential threat to Israel, with the simultaneous creation of an existential political threat, and you are talking in a new type of language, and a new type of warfare in which the IDF is not equipped to engage in, and perhaps shouldn't be engaging in.

A new report by the Reut Institute, a Tel Aviv-based national security and socioeconomic policy think tank, maps out the "new battlefield" in which Israel finds the legitimacy of its very existence attacked by a wide array of organizations and individuals in global centers like London, Toronto, Brussels, Madrid and Berkley.

The report, which also makes recommendations for possible remedies, is to be presented next week to Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon's adviser Ashley Perry, and will also be presented at the Herzliya Conference in January. The report's authors spent two weeks in London interviewing some 45 people, including members of Muslim groups and anti-Zionist Jewish organizations, and academics, journalists, pollsters, jurists, activists and politicians.

Beginning with Israel's traditional strategic concept, conceived by David Ben-Gurion, which posits that to win its wars, the IDF would have to take the fight to its enemies, the Reut report posits that increasingly, Israel cannot "win" its wars in the traditional sense as it is not up against conventional Arab armies, and there is no decisive victory over an enemy army to be had.

While there is still a physical existential threat posed by certain enemies (including unconventional terrorism), the new front focuses its attack on Israel's political legitimacy, painting Israel as a pariah state, exhausting Israeli society, burdening its economy, and mobilizing Israel's Arab minority as an anchor in the struggle against the Jewish state.

The key concept for this "Resistance Network" is overstretching Israel along the fault lines of demography, democracy (binational state vs a state of the Jewish people), Jewish identity and territory.

The report states that Israel's traditional enemies have increasingly been joined in battle by widespread networks of anti-Zionist groups, hostile human rights organizations and homegrown radical Islamists that use cultural, academic, legal and financial weapons against what they see as an illegitimate pariah state with its capital in occupied Jerusalem. They are trying to demonize Israel, to turn Israel into the Apartheid South Africa of the 21st century. These groups are concentrated in several large cities, what Reut calls "Hubs of Delegitimization."

Some places have a disproportionate impact in delegitimizing Israel. London, for example, is a center for international media, academic institutions, NGOs, human rights groups and a large Arab diaspora. It has always been fertile ground for radicals. There is widespread "colonialist/imperialist guilt" in London that for some translates "conveniently" into anti-Zionism, according to Reut's report.

London is also the scene for what Reut calls the "Red-Green Alliance" - an alliance of left-wing groups with the Muslim community in the UK. It merges the Left's view of anti-imperialism (Israel as the "little America") with a rejection of the concept of a Jewish state. This alliance has given birth to cooperation between solidarity NGOs, boycott movements, trade unions, influential academics and journalists, student leaders, left-wing politicians and Muslim organizations, all with one common cause: demonizing Israel.

It demonizes Israel by positing an "all-or-nothing" dynamic - boycotts are formulated as the only option of criticism of Israel. The attempt to paint pro-Palestinian activity as "trendy," while at the same time painting Zionism as imperialist, and Apartheid-like. Reut's assessment even goes as far to say that there are times when it is London, and not Ramallah, that sets the tone for Palestinian policy towards Israel.

"It's not the Palestinians who took over London - there are very few Palestinians within the Red-Green Alliance - it's leftist ideology from London that infiltrates Palestinian politics," the report states.

Reut's report distinguishes between "soft critics" of Israel and "hard-core delegitimizers," and posits that the hard-core group, made up of anti-Zionists, anti-Semites and radical Islamists, is always trying to coopt the "soft critic" group into a more radical position. Their goal is to blur the difference between legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and Israel's basic legitimacy. Reut's team suggests an effort should be made by Israel's defenders to drive a wedge between the soft and hard core critics of Israel in London. The soft critics are human rights groups like Oxfam that are critics of Israeli policy but not necessarily of its legitimacy.

According to Calev Ben-Dor, a member of the Reut mission to London, the perceived lack of options for those opposed to Israeli policy and wanting to "do something" to help Palestinians creates an "option vacuum" which often leads "soft critics" (those unhappy with specific Israeli policies) to adopt the positions of "hard delegitimizers" (who seek to undermine Israel's existence). A successful fight against delegitimization will have to include suggestions for how to drive a wedge between these two groups, Ben-Dor says.

Other recommendations presented by Reut to counter the hubs of delegitimacy are to break the "all-or-nothing" dynamic of criticism of Israel, place more Israeli diplomats in the hubs, be wary of "strange bedfellows" such as right-wing and evangelical organizations, brand Israel away from its image as purely a place of conflict, support anti-boycott campaigns (buy Israeli products), establish a "price tag" for attacking Israel and punish boycotters, promote Israel Studies Departments at universities, increase visits to Israel, and even persuade the Histadrut labor federation to get more involved with foreign trade unions.

(IsraelNN.com) An everlasting hope of finding significant amounts of oil in Israel may have been realized with the announcement Thursday that “significant quantities” of oil were found in a well in the area of Rosh HaAyin, a city located east of Tel Aviv on the western edge of Samaria.

The Givat Olam (Hebrew for “Hill of the World”) Exploration Limited Partnership informed the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange of the discovery, but added, “At this stage it is not possible to estimate the significance of these findings." The company’s stock more than doubled on the stock market, according to Globes.

The firm said the oil was found late Wednesday night and that “more than 60 percent gas was measured in the drill mud.” The commercial potential of the oil field will not be known until tests and calculations on production and processing can be completed.

The “Meged” well in the Rosh HaAyin area is one of the few that have been drilled outside of the Negev and Dead Sea area. Several studies by independent consultants have confirmed the potential for oil in the area, and previous drillings have encouraged the prospects of discovering enough oil and gas for commercial production.

Earlier this year, a huge gas field was discovered off the Mediterranean Coast. The gas is expected to be on line in three years and is anticipated to help Israel become self-sufficient in gas. It also is providing hundreds of high-paying jobs for developing the field and bringing the gas from the sea, off Hadera and Haifa, to the coastline.

If the Meged well proves commercially viable, it will further Israel’s longtime hope of being energy independent and is likely to strengthen the shekel against world currencies.

Carter's "apology" is fluff. "I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." doesn't do it. An Al Het is ordinarily offered for inadvertant wrongs that might have been done without being noticed. It is not a confession of guilt and repentance for specific transgressions. It is like the Godfather "apologizing" for "any harm I may have done" after wiping out someone's family. It indicates that Carter doesn't understand or will not admit that lying about Israel is wrong, and that claiming that Jews control America and won't let him tell the truth is evil rubbish.

(...)

The door to repentance and forgiveness must always be open. But Carter must really apologize. He must admit that no sinister Zionist conspiracy has stifled his freedom of speech, that his account of the peace process was fraudulent, that his justification for terrorism was beyond the pale.

After ranting for years, at every opportunity about the evil Jews and their control of the US government, spreading racism for fun and profit, lying about the history of the Middle East and peace negotiations, Jimmy Carter admits he "may" have caused Israel harm and repents ( see Carter apologizes to Jewish community):

In a letter released exclusively to JTA, the former US president sent a seasonal message wishing for peace between Israel and its neighbors, and concluded: "We must recognize Israel's achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so."

It is better than nothing. To which a spokesman for the progressive coalition against Israel and the Jewish conspiracy will reply, "Now he tells us. We were all ready with the gas chambers and the other things needed to deal with Jewish control of the United States (AKA ZOG - The Zionist Occupied Government) and now Carter seems to be having second thoughts. Without Carter to lead us, we are a flock that has lost its shepherd. Anyone want to buy some brand new gas chambers?"

Carter's "apology" is fluff. "I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so." doesn't do it. An Al Het is ordinarily offered for inadvertant wrongs that might have been done without being noticed. It is not a confession of guilt and repentance for specific transgressions. It is like the Godfather "apologizing" for "any harm I may have done" after wiping out someone's family. It indicates that Carter doesn't understand or will not admit that lying about Israel is wrong, and that claiming that Jews control America and won't let him tell the truth is evil rubbish.

He didn't present incorrect fiction about the peace process inadvertantly or in the spirit of constructive criticism. He was not there to correct and improve, since lies and inflammatory slogans like "Apartheid" cannot be constructive or improving. He deliberately spread lies about Israel. Carter's falsehoods were deliberate. He would not retract his infamous fiction about the map of peace proposals even after Dennis Ross pointed out that it is a lie. He still did not retract it. He also spread racist incitement about Jews in the United States. At least he could have said, "ooik, the Saudis paid me a lot of money to do this. I'm sorry, but you know, business is business." He needs to acknowledge and disown specific lies that he spread. Without that, his "apology" is an insult to our intelligence, an attempt to ingratiate himself with Jews and with decent people who were horrified by his anti-Semitic rants, while at the same time giving himself a license to continue doing exactly the same thing.

The Emperor Constantine, after leading a life of violence, was finally baptized on his deathbed, to wipe away all sin. Jimmy Carter is not there yet, and there is no indication he is done sinning. His apology to the Jews is premature. He will sin again.

The door to repentance and forgiveness must always be open. But Carter must really apologize. He must admit that no sinister Zionist conspiracy has stifled his freedom of speech, that his account of the peace process was fraudulent, that his justification for terrorism was beyond the pale.

We should not have put the headline "Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs" on a story about an admission, by the former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv, that during the 1990s specialists at the institute harvested organs from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers without getting permission from the families of the deceased (21 December, page 15). That headline did not match the article, which made clear that the organs were not taken only from Palestinians. This was a serious editing error and the headline has been changed online to reflect the text of the story written by the reporter.

Former US president denies apology to US Jews due solely to grandson's decision to launch political career

WASHINGTON - Former US President Jimmy Carter insists that his letter of apology addressed to US Jews published on Monday was not simply due to the fact that his grandson has decided to launch a political career and run for the Georgia state senator.

The former president's grandson, Jason Carter, 34, an Atlanta-area lawyer, is considering a run to fill a seat covering suburban DeKalb County should the incumbent, David Adelman, be designated ambassador to Singapore.

News of the young Carter's political ambitions has led some to suspect the former president's motives behind his apology were insincere.

But Carter senior told the Jewish Telegraph Agency in an interview published Tuesday that ethnic electoral considerations were not reason enough to reach out to the Jewish community, although he did not outright deny that it was a factor.

"Jason has a district, the number of Jewish voters in it is only 2%," he said, chuckling.

The senior Carter, who is not a popular character in Israel, enraged the American Jewish community in the past with various statements made in his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."

In the book, Carter blamed Israel for impeding the Middle East peace process via settlement construction, further claiming such a policy will lead to apartheid. The publication of the book caused 14 Jews to quit their jobs at the Carter Center in 2006.

Since then Carter has been trying to restore relations with the Jewish public. He hoped to appear in synagogues or Jewish community centers to explain himself and apologize, but his efforts were rejected.

He therefore decided to publish his letter of apology in a Jewish news agency around the holiday season, in hopes of reaching the public.

In a statement following his grandfather's letter, Jason Carter said: "While I was very happy to see my grandfather's letter, it was completely unrelated to my campaign. The letter is a product of discussions with some of his friends in the Jewish community that have been going on for a long time. I, like many others, see this as a great step towards reconciliation."

As the first anniversary of Operation Cast Lead approaches, Israel and the Palestinians continue fighting over the very facts of the war. Most news outlets report that more than 1,000 civilians died in the war, but Italian journalist Lorenzo Cremonesi was the first to indicate that the casualty count was far smaller than what Palestinian sources present. Later in the year, Simona Weinglass dug deeper, finding that Israelis and Palestinians even differ on the definition of a civilian casualty.

Lest we forget, there was more to Israel than Gaza. Israeli voters elected Benyamin Netanyahu to lead the country. Ben Gurion University Professor Neve Gordon's call for a boycott of his own country sparked outrage among academics inside and outside of Israel. Neither was sports sacred: Al-Jazeera tried to bury Israeli soccer success.

Meanwhile, the financial pressures of the journalism industry continued hitting the foreign press corps. In April, McClatchy News correspondent Dion Nissenbaum poignantly noted how Beit Agron, which once bustled with foreign news bureaus, has become a ghost town. Now, in a sign of the times, Nissenbaum himself leaves for Afghanistan. Other reporters will cover Israel for McClatchy, but it will no longer maintain a full-time bureau.

Such is the state of journalism in microcosm.

Citizen journalism – the idea that anyone capable of posting text, photos or video online is a news source – emerged in 2009 as a force to be reckoned with. In Iran, ordinary people managed to supplant traditional journalism when the government banned press coverage of massive post-election protests. According to Mashable, in a 24-hour period, a staggering 3,000 videos were uploaded to YouTube and 2,250,000 blog posts were published – just about the Iranian protests.

We thank our readers for sharing their feedback on the year's worst Mideast coverage. On with the "awards."

Poison Pen Award: Pat Oliphant

For outright demonization of Israel, Pat Oliphant, one of the world's most widely-syndicated cartoonists, wins hands down. The headless, jackbooted, goose-stepping figure holding an outstretched sword pushing a Star of David -- baring its fangs at a Gaza mother and baby -- appeals to the worst Nazi stereotypes.

In a presentation to the Australian Cartoonists Association posted on YouTube, Oliphant replaced the Jewish star with a swastika to emphasize his intended Nazi comparison. Here's Oliphant in his own words:

My complaint was that Israel, the Israeli state, was behaving very much like their former tormentors were behaving back in the 30s and 40s, and insinuating that they were, they had a somewhat Nazi side to the way they were behaving. And I feel somebody should say it. And I did. And the s**t hit the fan. And I'm still hearing about it.

This is, then, a loathsome cartoon. But to dismiss it by the single word "anti-Semitism" will foreclose thought as to why it is a loathsome cartoon. It will allow its defenders to avoid facing the real problems with this cartoon and the worldview it represents. And worst of all: that argument implies that the only problem was using the ambiguous Mogen David, that it would have been acceptable if he had just written the word "Israel" on the Nazi monster he created to represent the Jewish state.

Lousiest Journalist Wannabe: Ken Livingstone, The New Statesman

During the year, a few papers began inviting various personalities to be guest editors, overseeing content for a day. This growing trend included comedian Stephen Colbert getting top job at Newsweek, and Ha'aretz letting prominent Israeli poets and writers run the paper. Guest editors are even a Christmas tradition at BBC Radio 4's flagship Today program.

The New Statesman jumped on the bandwagon by inviting ex-London mayor Ken Livingstone to be guest editor for the magazine's Sept. 17 issue. Unfortunately, the edition included "Red Ken's" fawning interview with Hamas boss Khaled Mashaal. An open-mic opportunity would be a more apt description: the Q&A's length came in at exactly 4,000 words.

Livingstone's entitled to talk to whomever he wants. Had he posted the interview on a blog of his own, nobody would have cared.

But The New Statesman is a mainstream magazine; it has a responsibility to publish news, not propaganda, irrespective of citizen journalists, celebrity editors, or media veterans. Too bad they didn't solicit Colbert's take on Hamas.

Most Insane Moral Equivalence: Max Blumenthal, Huffington Post

Thanks to the power of bloggers and online video, Iranian protesters made Neda Soltan an international icon after a graphic video of her murder by government forces went viral on YouTube. Unfortunately, Huffington Post blogger Max Blumenthal drew a despicable moral equivalence between her killers and the Israeli army.

Shortly before Israelis went to the polls in February to choose a Prime Minister, London's Evening Standard featured a headline so outrageous that no further comment is necessary: "Israelis go to polls to choose between three warmongers"

Biggest Train Wreck of Mishandled Sources: Ha'aretz

In March, Ha'aretz broke a story of IDF soldiers' testimonies exposing war crimes and human rights violations. For Israel's critics, it was perfect: a sweeping indictment based on testimony from Israeli soldiers, first broken by a mainstream Israeli newspaper. The soldiers' testimonies spread like wildfire around the world with sensational headlines:

But when the news cycle ran its course, it emerged that Ha'aretz's sources were based on nine soldiers describing incidents they heard about from others – hearsay. The head of the military academy where the discussions took place, Col. Danny Zamir, slammed the media's reaction to the affair. He wrote in the Jerusalem Post:

It was as if the media were altogether so eager to find reason to criticize the IDF that they pounced on one discussion by nine soldiers who met after returning from the battlefield to share their experiences and subjective feelings with each other, using that one episode to draw conclusions that felt more like an indictment.

Zamir said that what disturbed him the most was an article in The New York Times under the headline "A Religious War in Israel's Army," which left the impression that a veritable kulturkampf between religious and secular soldiers was under way.

Unfortunately, the hearsay element and Col. Zamir's response didn't get equal billing to the sensational headlines Ha'aretz set in motion.

The Guardian's videos were presented as fact with out any supporting evidence.

The package lacked any verifiable information or any mention of the measures taken by the IDF to avoid civilian casualties while Hamas actively used human shields.

A reliance on dubious Palestinian sources. Palestinians aren't brave enough -- or stupid enough – to risk the wrath of Hamas by telling journalists (or human rights personnel or UN officials) about the homes used as cover for rocket fire, the mosques used as weapons dumps, or the hospitals and ambulances commandeered by Hamas leaders.

Furthermore, the Jerusalem Post discovered that The Guardian crossed the line into outright activism with a letter to bloggers and web site owners appealing for them to plug the package in order to

. . . add weight to calls this week for a full inquiry into the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, which was aimed at Hamas, but which left over 1400 Palestinians dead - around 300 known to be children.

Biggest Train Wreck of Anonymous Sources: NY Times

When the White House sought to press Israel on settlements in June, anonymous "administration officials" told NY Times reporter Helene Cooper the US would take symbolic steps to show its protest.

It indicated a significant policy shift – a real scoop for Cooper. But Cooper and the Times were used to simply convey a threat to Israel and raise the stakes of a policy disagreement. The anonymous officials, whoever they were, chose the right paper. The threats, appearing in a paper as prominent as the Gray Lady, could neither be overlooked nor ignored, and were perfectly deniable.

For several weeks, the tension between the two countries made headlines and raised Arab expectations until Washington backed down.

If nothing else, the fallout was instructive. The dustup reminded everyone that Israel indeed had an understanding with the US allowing for some settlement activity in already-existing communities, and that Israel was indeed honoring that understanding. Elliott Abrams, who was involved in US-Israeli settlement discussions, wrote:

For the past five years, Israel's government has largely adhered to guidelines that were discussed with the United States but never formally adopted . . .

A look at an exchange of letters between President George Bush Jr. and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shows that Israel might not have disengaged from Gaza without the understandings.

While the Obama administration ultimately took a hit, the NY Times was never called onto the carpet over how the way it was used.

No proof was ever offered that Jewish organizations lobbied the government or media differently than any other organized interest groups.

HonestReporting and managing editor Simon Plosker were targeted as well. Oborne's investigation of HonestReporting was shoddy enough (details here, here and here) that it calls into question the rest of his investigation.

Medical journals in South Africa and Canada unfairly took Israel to task over Operation Cast Lead. But when the British Medical Journal went even further, claiming HonestReporting stifled debate, Dr. Simon Fishman took a closer look and found the BMJ's interest in Israel, uh, disproportionate.

Does anyone remember when getting an article through the rigors of peer review to publishing in these medical journals was considered prestigious?

Most Senseless Talking Head: Michael White

Michael White, an associate editor at The Guardian, was a guest on BBC Radio London's Breakfast Show discussing an attack on Italian PM Sylvio Berlusconi when he made the following statement:

In Israel they murder each other a great deal. The Israeli Defense Forces murder people because they don't like their political style and what they've got to say and it only means that people more extreme come in and take their place.

A sharp interviewer with a little chutzpah could've stopped White in his tracks and followed up on his silly accusation. But it didn't occur to the Breakfast Show hosts to do that because White's language is now mainstream in the UK media. But even more troubling is the ease of White's lie coupled with his responsibilities as associate editor.

And how does The Guardian relate to this? Good question. The paper hasn't yet responded to HonestReporting's concerns or the hundreds of emails we were cc'd on.

How many Palestinian Anne Franks did the Israelis murder, maim or turn mad?

The comparison only works if The Independent's columnist can prove Dutch Jews fired rockets at Germany for seven years . . .

Crummiest Quality Control: The Age

First, The Age of Melbourne published a nasty commentary by columnist Michael Backman, titled, Israelis Are Living High On US Expense Account in the paper's business section. The paper pulled the commentary and published an apology saying the column "was published in error." Backman apologized to the Australian Jewish community too.

How does a column that noxious get published in error? According to Crikey, both the editor of the paper and editor of the business section were on vacation, leaving behind sub-editors who had to handle a column that went beyond their expertise in business:

In this case, I hear that the subs on the business desk at The Age are still arguing that the Backman column was all right and the Age had no reason to apologise for running it.

And now for the winner . . .

Dishonest Reporter of the Year: Donald Bostrom, Aftonbladet

Despite all the issues surrounding the Gaza war, the unfounded claims of war crimes, the UN censure, lawfare efforts, and the contentious casualty count, readers selected a Swedish journalist who had never previously been on HonestReporting's radar. The article in question had absolutely nothing to do with the war, but the fallout it created was steady and ongoing – albeit less dramatic.

So we weren't surprised in the least to find that our winner, Aftonbladet's Donald Bostrom, touched a nerve in readers in ways that few journalists ever do.

It began in August when Aftonbladet, one of Sweden's largest dailies, published a double-page spread in its cultural section headlined: They Plunder the Organs of Our Sons. The story quoted Palestinian claims that Israeli soldiers seized young men from the West Bank and Gaza and later returned the bodies with missing organs. (Read the original article in Swedish here.) It stirred a hornet's nest of issues:

1) Independent verification: Bostrom failed to independently verify the claims of the family of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, who died in 1992. Bostrom later backtracked, saying:

I was [present] during the interview that night, I was a witness. It concerns me to the extent that I want it to be investigated . . . But whether it's true or not - I have no idea, I have no clue.

Moreover, when Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh tracked down the Ghanem family who said they never told Bostrom their son was missing organs:

The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen.

However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians . . . .

Bottom line: Bostrom's story is based on nothing more than unconfirmed testimonies, half-truths and speculation.

2) Using true facts to make a false conclusion: Bostrom "covered" Ghanem's death in 1992, so why revisit the issue? Because he places it in the context of the New Jersey organ trafficking scandal, an international conspiracy is strongly implied but never proven.

3) Burden of proof: Although the burden of proof for such a claim normally falls on the journalist, amazingly, Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin shifted it to Israel, when he told reporters:

The article poses a question – why has this body been autopsied when the cause of death is obvious? There I think Israeli authorities owe us an answer.

Not at all. It's up to Bostrom to convince doctors like Mazen Arafah and Andrea Meyerhoff, who point out that it's medically impossible to harvest organs from people who die gunshots to the abdomen and chest—as Bostrom described of Ghanem.

4) Is the article anti-Semitic? The question cuts to the core of the ensuing diplomatic crisis when the Swedish government refused to condemn the article. Swedish officials maintained it was an issue of free speech, while Israeli officials argued that irresponsible journalism that incites against Israel and Jews everywhere.

For the record, Israel didn't ask Sweden to censor the article. For comparison, the UK government condemned the New Statesman for its interview with Khaled Mashaal.

5) News stories take on a life of their own: Since the article went to print, rumors of Israeli organ-harvesting surfaced in Ukrainian elections, were an excuse to ban Israeli doctors from an Egyptian medical conference, and brought at least one pseudo-journalists crawling out of the woodwork with copycat claims.

Moreover, as we prepared to publish these awards, Israel's Channel 2 aired a video of top pathologist, Dr. Yehuda Hiss, admitting that his staff harvested organs from Israelis and Palestinians during the 1990s without families' permission. The video offered no evidence that Palestinians were killed by the IDF (Israel's Institute of Forensic Medicine in Abu Kabir is a civilian facility operated by the Ministry of Health.) Not letting facts get in the way of a sensational headline, a headline in Sydney's Daily Telegraph stated:

Israeli Army Admits Stealing Organs

"This reprinting of old information must not be allowed to become the occasion for mischief, blasphemous lies or distortions," Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Chairman Alan Solow and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein said in a statement. Media interviews surrounding the reports "provided no evidence to indicate that any Palestinian was killed to 'harvest organs.' Such accusations can inflame the region, incite violence and undermine the chances of peace."

As nasty as the story is, there is actually no linkage to Bostrom's false allegations, which libeled the IDF. The Abu Kabir scandal did not target Palestinians. Israeli soldiers, civilians, Jews, non-Jews as well as Palestinians were the victims of a domestic scandal that was discovered and dealt with by the Israeli authorities to ensure that such ethical lapses would not be allowed to reoccur.

If I were writing it again, I would stress that the IDF liquidates so many youths without a trial and that they take bodies and conduct autopsies on them without the permission of the families. My article created confusion and was incorrectly interpreted.

In response, Bostrom said that he understands why people are angry, saying that everyone lies while at war. He said that it is difficult for reporters to distinguish between what is correct and what is a lie.

That's Bostrom in his own words.

Donald Bostrom doesn't know the truth because he failed to put in the necessary long-term investigative work real journalism demands. Nor does he show any concern for the consequences of his words. And for those reasons, HonestReporting readers chose him as the Dishonest Reporter of 2009.

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We covered a lot of ground in 2009.

And with help from our readers, we'll continue to monitor and hold the media to account in 2010.